Stand Up For Torture Victim Maher Arar

Today we mark the beginning of Torture Awareness Month by highlighting the case of Maher Arar.

Arar, a Canadian telecommunications engineer, was detained by US immigration while transiting New York on his way home from a family holiday and plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare of torture and abuse.

In September 2002 Arar was traveling through JFK airport when he was pulled aside by US officials. Canadian police had generated a deeply flawed intelligence report based on a brief social encounter in Ottawa between Arar and ‘a person of interest.’ US officials accepted it without question and Arar’s nightmare began.

Despite his citizenship and residency in Canada, Arar was handed over illegally to the Syrian government – a country whose human rights record the United States has routinely condemned. He was held for 374 days before he was finally released and returned home:

“[In Syria], I was put in a dark underground cell that was more like a grave. It was three feet wide, six feet deep and seven feet high. Life in that cell was hell. I spent ten months and ten days in that grave.

During the early days of my detention, I was interrogated and physically tortured. I was beaten with an electric cable and threatened with a metal chair, the tire and electric shocks. I was forced to falsely confess that I had been to Afghanistan. When I was not being beaten, I was put in a waiting room so that I could hear the screams of other prisoners. The cries of the women haunt me most.”

The United States has made no attempt to defend or justify what it had done to Arar. The then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged before Congress that his case had not been not handled as it should have been but no apology or effort of compensation was forthcoming from the Bush administration.

Indeed, Arar remains on the US ‘no fly’ list to this day and is still excluded from setting foot on US soil. Despite the fact that a Canadian government inquiry fully exonerated Arar and awarded him C$10.5m in damages, the ongoing taint of apparent US suspicions still makes it difficult for him to travel safely abroad.

Arar tried to restore his good name by seeking redress in the US courts but his case was frustrated first by the Bush administration and then the Obama administration, both invoking the ‘state secrets privilege’ to get the suit dismissed.

Arar appealed, but in June 2010 the Supreme Court declined to take up the case, effectively exhausting his legal options. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, that national security concerns protected US officials from being held accountable for the brutalization of a fellow human being on the flimsiest of pretexts, stands.

Arar is not the only individual to see his efforts to hold the government accountable come to nothing in the US courts. Indeed, every other attempt to do so has also failed.

Last month the Supreme Court also refused to hear arguments relating to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to allow the government to hide behind the ‘state secrets privilege’ in the Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan case, despite the fact that almost all of the relevant information concerning the case was already in the public domain.

Just last week the Obama administration similarly urged the Supreme Court to refuse to hear arguments relating to Saleh v. Titan, a class action lawsuit brought by more than 250 Iraqi plaintiffs against the Titan Corporation and CACI International Inc, who supplied interpreters to support military interrogations. The plaintiffs charge that Titan and CACI staff participated in acts of torture and other illegal conduct at the notorious Abu Ghraib detention facility, and are seeking compensation.

The courts have completely failed to act as a check on government abuses. The executive branch has lined up behind the previous administration. The legislative branch is the only remaining avenue left to gain some small measure of justice for the victims of the extraordinary rendition program, and other Bush administration counterterrorism excesses.

Congress has the power to authorize a formal apology and arrange compensation for the victims of US-sanctioned abuse. This may seem like an impossible lift, but it is not.

In October 2007 Maher Arar testified via video before a joint hearing of House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on extraordinary rendition. Representatives Nadler (D-NY), Delahunt (D-MA), Conyers (D-MI) and Rohrabacher (R-CA) all took the opportunity to apologize to him for his ordeal at US hands.

This is the kind of small step in the right direction that a grassroots organization like Amnesty can build on.

About Tom Parker

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22 thoughts on “Stand Up For Torture Victim Maher Arar”

As an American citizen of conscience I'm appalled by this story and deeply ashamed. I understand why, after 9/11 people were in panic mode, still that doesn't excuse any government of robbing anyone of due process. We owe this man an apology, at the very least.

On the other hand we allow celebrity "Cat" Yusuf Islam back into the country, with "feel good" apologists ignoring dubious ties to terrorist orgs like Hamas. Not to mention 20 years after his televised support of the fatwa put on Salman Rushdie, he has yet to issue a perfuse apology for it or a blanket condemnation of the policy itself on the grounds of human rights and freedom of speech.

Obviously if a person is rich and famous, all they have to do is talk about "peace" to Americans and the inconvenient details disappear.

As an American citizen of conscience I’m appalled by this story and deeply ashamed. I understand why, after 9/11 people were in panic mode, still that doesn’t excuse any government of robbing anyone of due process. We owe this man an apology, at the very least.

On the other hand we allow celebrity “Cat” Yusuf Islam back into the country, with “feel good” apologists ignoring dubious ties to terrorist orgs like Hamas. Not to mention 20 years after his televised support of the fatwa put on Salman Rushdie, he has yet to issue a perfuse apology for it or a blanket condemnation of the policy itself on the grounds of human rights and freedom of speech.

Obviously if a person is rich and famous, all they have to do is talk about “peace” to Americans and the inconvenient details disappear.

As an American citizen of conscience I’m appalled by the story of Maher Arar and deeply ashamed. I understand why, after 9/11 people were in panic mode, still that doesn’t excuse any government of robbing anyone of due process. We owe this man an apology now!!!

Was the Cat ever tortured ? Unless we are talking metaphorically or lyrically here, & we most definitely are not ? Was he ever even in any prison, except the one behind plenty of musical bars where he serves a life sentence ?

As an American citizen of conscience I’m appalled by the story of Maher Arar and deeply ashamed. I understand why, after 9/11 people were in panic mode, still that doesn’t excuse any government of robbing anyone of due process. We owe this man an apology now!!!

Was the Cat ever tortured ? Unless we are talking metaphorically or lyrically here, & we most definitely are not ? Was he ever even in any prison, except the one behind plenty of musical bars where he serves a life sentence ?

Unlike so many unrepentant terrorists like Omar Khadr for just one example that even though they do not deserve it have had Amnesty championing their the cases for them.

Canadian Prime Minister Harper, a right wing conservative and no friend of Islamic terrorists, made an public apology to Arar for Canada's role in what he called an innocent man's torture along with a ten million dollar compensation check and if anyone in the US Homeland Security has any lingering doubts about Arar, I think they can take Prime Minister Harper's word on this that Arar never did anything and was a complete victim.

2) Maher Arar was actually really tortured.

Unlike Omar Khadr for example, who made false claims that a little rough treatment was torture, and even unlike the comparatively mild, physically safe and not disfiguring torture called water boarding.

Maher Arar was actually really tortured, by the notorious Syrians no less. The unspeakable horror of what was done to him makes water boarding and other supposed Guantanamo abuses look like a walk in the park.

Unlike so many unrepentant terrorists like Omar Khadr for just one example that even though they do not deserve it have had Amnesty championing their the cases for them.

Canadian Prime Minister Harper, a right wing conservative and no friend of Islamic terrorists, made an public apology to Arar for Canada’s role in what he called an innocent man’s torture along with a ten million dollar compensation check and if anyone in the US Homeland Security has any lingering doubts about Arar, I think they can take Prime Minister Harper’s word on this that Arar never did anything and was a complete victim.

2) Maher Arar was actually really tortured.

Unlike Omar Khadr for example, who made false claims that a little rough treatment was torture, and even unlike the comparatively mild, physically safe and not disfiguring torture called water boarding.

Maher Arar was actually really tortured, by the notorious Syrians no less. The unspeakable horror of what was done to him makes water boarding and other supposed Guantanamo abuses look like a walk in the park.

I am ashamed to be an American. This is an appalling case of"justice". We pride ourselves on our legal system and our THEORY of democracy. I wonder if this hypocrisy was a part of Bush and Obama's campaign… I seem to remember the current president using "Hope" as a word to encompass the feeling he is giving Americans and all people. Apparently he is selective with this. This is a pathetic and embarrassing display of the contradictions our politicians embody. Truly disgraceful.

I am ashamed to be an American. This is an appalling case of”justice”. We pride ourselves on our legal system and our THEORY of democracy. I wonder if this hypocrisy was a part of Bush and Obama’s campaign… I seem to remember the current president using “Hope” as a word to encompass the feeling he is giving Americans and all people. Apparently he is selective with this. This is a pathetic and embarrassing display of the contradictions our politicians embody. Truly disgraceful.

See what "a little rough treatment " actually was like for 15 – year old Omar.

Omar was shot in the back & captured, with three gaping wounds on his chest open like cut fruit to reveal the bloody raw craters of flesh inside.

12 hours after he's brought in from a field hospital to the US detention center in Afghanistan, his interrogation begins.

Says lawyer Kobie Flowers in outrage :"You got a guy who is 15, seriously wounded, who has had multiple surgeries, & that's the first time the United States government takes a statement from him to use in his prosecution…..
I don't think any federal judge in the United States would allow that type of conduct."

Why not, your Honor ? It's just a "little rough treatment", in'it ?

But it's not only this. His interrogator "manipulated his injuries" during the questioning.

"Manipulated" how ?

Did the interrogator reach into the wounds & reopen them ?

We don't know. The details have been removed from the record.

Enter Damien Corsetti, aka "Monster", aka "The King of Torture", another US interrogator who sees Omar in the prison at this time. Corsetti describes himself as " a disabled veteran suffering post traumatic stress disorder AS RESULT OF his interrogation work in both Afghanistan & Iraq".

He sees Omar 2 days after his capture.

What strikes Corsetti is how much Omar looks like an injured "child" in "one of the worst places on Earth."

He describes Omar :

"He was a 15 – year old kid with three holes in his body, a bunch of shrapnel in his face. That was how I remember. How horrible this 15 – year – old child looked."

The wounds yet unhealed, the US soldiers start making him to do hard manual labor.

What of it ? It's only "a little rough treatment" of an "unrepentant terrorist".

Military police poured pine oil on him & on the floor after he'd urinated, & then , with him lying on his belly & his wrists & feet cuffed behind him, they dragged him across the piss & oil, using him as a human mop.

Countless witnesses, including US soldiers, have testified to these brutalities at Bagram in 2002, the time Omar was there.

When the soldiers changed his bandages, they did it very roughly, & videotaped the procedure.

They hooded him & chained his wrists to his cage.

Lawyer Kobie Flowers says : " Had this been an American soldier in North Korea, people would be outraged. Here we have a 15 – year old individual who was nearly killed with bulllets in his back who was left up there to hang as punishment."

Since judonimh always speaks in support of Israel, we take it such treatment is considered NORMAL in Israeli prisons & is NOT held to be torture there, even for the Palestinian children in Israel's prisons .

judonimh might or might not also find it normal that Omar's Interrogator No.1, Joshua Claus, tried to scare him into making "confessions" by telling him a story about a "little Afghan" who stuck to his lies & was punished by being sent to an American prison where he was surrounded by "big black men" & "BIG NAZIS" & was raped in the shower & died as a result.

Is this torture ? It is when you remember it was told to an isolated teen in Bagram who found himself alone inside the ring of his callous & violent enemies, with the air filled CONTINUOUSLY with screams of tortured men.

It is torture when you know the violent history of child rape & sodomy in Afghanistan by the warlords & their brutal armies, a fact the US interrogators quickly cottoned on to & which the US military tried to cover up when their allies did it.

US interrogators speedily picked up on the terror the Afghans have of rape & sodomy.

Omar was specifically threatened with being sent to Israel , among other countries, to be raped there.

But even so judonimh, from the way he talks, doesn't seem to consider psychological torture ( of a child or of anyone ) to be torture at all.

The key point, Savage, the one you are having difficulty wrapping your mind around is that Maher Arar is innocent, * i * n* n* o* c* e* n* t*.

He had nothing to do with any terrorism or extremism in any way and is nothing but a good Canadian citizen and family man who was horrifically treated based on massive goof ups in intelligence.

I mentioned Omar Khadr was to only clearly differentiate between the two, Khadr being guilty, *g* u* i* l* t* y*

And Khadr's treatment, even if you believe every one of his lies, did not come within a million miles, a billion miles, of the sever, excruciating, prolonged, repeated Spanish Inquisition style torture which Arar, who I repeat was innocent, had to endure for almost a year at the hands of Syria.

One of Amnesty's goals is to fight torture, and to get the public to understand that it is morally wrong in all cases. Technically I know, this means if it is wrong to torture, it is just as wrong to torture the innocent as the guilty, but this is a very difficult concept for many people to swallow.

Most people react with true shock and outrage at the thought of Arar, a completely innocent human being, accidentally through some crazy mixture of error and incompetence and post 9/11 fear and paranoia, being put through something out of a horror film from which he barely made it out alive.

Most people, on the other hand, really could not care less or even actually would approve of Khadr, who is guilty and an unrepentant supporter of Al Qeda to this day getting slightly roughed up on one occasion.

So, I say Amnesty would have much greater success in its public campaign against torture if it focused on raising public awareness of actually innocent torture victims like Maher Arar, and stopped trying to turn the despicable and guilty as charged Omar Khadr into Amnesty's anti-torture poster boy.

See what “a little rough treatment ” actually was like for 15 – year old Omar.

Omar was shot in the back & captured, with three gaping wounds on his chest open like cut fruit to reveal the bloody raw craters of flesh inside.

12 hours after he’s brought in from a field hospital to the US detention center in Afghanistan, his interrogation begins.

Says lawyer Kobie Flowers in outrage :”You got a guy who is 15, seriously wounded, who has had multiple surgeries, & that’s the first time the United States government takes a statement from him to use in his prosecution…..
I don’t think any federal judge in the United States would allow that type of conduct.”

Why not, your Honor ? It’s just a “little rough treatment”, in’it ?

But it’s not only this. His interrogator “manipulated his injuries” during the questioning.

“Manipulated” how ?

Did the interrogator reach into the wounds & reopen them ?

We don’t know. The details have been removed from the record.

Enter Damien Corsetti, aka “Monster”, aka “The King of Torture”, another US interrogator who sees Omar in the prison at this time. Corsetti describes himself as ” a disabled veteran suffering post traumatic stress disorder AS RESULT OF his interrogation work in both Afghanistan & Iraq”.

He sees Omar 2 days after his capture.

What strikes Corsetti is how much Omar looks like an injured “child” in “one of the worst places on Earth.”

He describes Omar :

“He was a 15 – year old kid with three holes in his body, a bunch of shrapnel in his face. That was how I remember. How horrible this 15 – year – old child looked.”

The wounds yet unhealed, the US soldiers start making him to do hard manual labor.

What of it ? It’s only “a little rough treatment” of an “unrepentant terrorist”.

Military police poured pine oil on him & on the floor after he’d urinated, & then , with him lying on his belly & his wrists & feet cuffed behind him, they dragged him across the piss & oil, using him as a human mop.

Countless witnesses, including US soldiers, have testified to these brutalities at Bagram in 2002, the time Omar was there.

When the soldiers changed his bandages, they did it very roughly, & videotaped the procedure.

They hooded him & chained his wrists to his cage.

Lawyer Kobie Flowers says : ” Had this been an American soldier in North Korea, people would be outraged. Here we have a 15 – year old individual who was nearly killed with bulllets in his back who was left up there to hang as punishment.”

Since judonimh always speaks in support of Israel, we take it such treatment is considered NORMAL in Israeli prisons & is NOT held to be torture there, even for the Palestinian children in Israel’s prisons .

judonimh might or might not also find it normal that Omar’s Interrogator No.1, Joshua Claus, tried to scare him into making “confessions” by telling him a story about a “little Afghan” who stuck to his lies & was punished by being sent to an American prison where he was surrounded by “big black men” & “BIG NAZIS” & was raped in the shower & died as a result.

Is this torture ? It is when you remember it was told to an isolated teen in Bagram who found himself alone inside the ring of his callous & violent enemies, with the air filled CONTINUOUSLY with screams of tortured men.

It is torture when you know the violent history of child rape & sodomy in Afghanistan by the warlords & their brutal armies, a fact the US interrogators quickly cottoned on to & which the US military tried to cover up when their allies did it.

US interrogators speedily picked up on the terror the Afghans have of rape & sodomy.

Omar was specifically threatened with being sent to Israel , among other countries, to be raped there.

But even so judonimh, from the way he talks, doesn’t seem to consider psychological torture ( of a child or of anyone ) to be torture at all.

The key point, Savage, the one you are having difficulty wrapping your mind around is that Maher Arar is innocent, * i * n* n* o* c* e* n* t*.

He had nothing to do with any terrorism or extremism in any way and is nothing but a good Canadian citizen and family man who was horrifically treated based on massive goof ups in intelligence.

I mentioned Omar Khadr was to only clearly differentiate between the two, Khadr being guilty, *g* u* i* l* t* y*

And Khadr’s treatment, even if you believe every one of his lies, did not come within a million miles, a billion miles, of the sever, excruciating, prolonged, repeated Spanish Inquisition style torture which Arar, who I repeat was innocent, had to endure for almost a year at the hands of Syria.

One of Amnesty’s goals is to fight torture, and to get the public to understand that it is morally wrong in all cases. Technically I know, this means if it is wrong to torture, it is just as wrong to torture the innocent as the guilty, but this is a very difficult concept for many people to swallow.

Most people react with true shock and outrage at the thought of Arar, a completely innocent human being, accidentally through some crazy mixture of error and incompetence and post 9/11 fear and paranoia, being put through something out of a horror film from which he barely made it out alive.

Most people, on the other hand, really could not care less or even actually would approve of Khadr, who is guilty and an unrepentant supporter of Al Qeda to this day getting slightly roughed up on one occasion.

So, I say Amnesty would have much greater success in its public campaign against torture if it focused on raising public awareness of actually innocent torture victims like Maher Arar, and stopped trying to turn the despicable and guilty as charged Omar Khadr into Amnesty’s anti-torture poster boy.